56 Comments

If women were having orgasms as quickly and frequently as men, you'd see a huge change in their sexual behavior.

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Discussions of "male vs female sexuality" are inescapably reductionistic. For example, I'd wager that those studies Konner and you cited are based on undergraduates in the US. So we take one age group, one slice of an economic spectrum, one country, in one point in history ... and we extrapolate to "male and female sexuality."

How do our sexual appetites change over time and circumstance? Are the desires of a 60 year-old man those of the 20 year-old who sat for the survey? What about women's libido as they age? What about foragers in the Amazon or the Arctic? How about 19th century French villagers?

If you look across cultures, historical periods, and closely related primates such as bonobos, I suspect you'll emerge much less confident in these seemingly obvious premises about how males and females innately experience their sexuality. Turns out, it's far more nuanced and complex than it seems.

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Feb 24, 2023·edited Feb 27, 2023Liked by Richard V Reeves

Ethan might learn a little something from Romeo. Romeo and Juliet is all about the chase, a young man's desire and a young woman's longing for that desire. Although Paris, the one Juliet is arranged to marry, finds Juliet's outward beauty appealing, he does nothing to really rev-up Juliet's engine. Romeo, on the hand, is the man Juliet wants and Ethan might learn something from his pursuits. Sure, Romeo is a love-crazed young man whose hormones are raging, but that does not mean he's unwilling to commit. After all, I'm sure Harper would love to cut Ethan out in little stars.

While Juliet denies one pursuer, she embraces another, enticing and encouraging him. But there are certain boundaries, commitment for instance. On the eve of her wedding night, Juliet longs for her Romeo, and it's very clear she desires him and she loves that he desires her.

Juliet: "Come, gentle night, come, loving black-browed night,

Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars."

Without Romeo's eagerness to pursue and without Juliet's willingness to encourage it, the world might have missed the greatest love story ever told. Harper and Ethan's world lack passion in a passionless world that teaches that looking is tabu and passion is toxic.

No! Passion is the key. "O she doth teach the torches to burn bright" is as elegant as you look stunning in that dress.

Good luck boys. And girls, give them a chance or someone else might.

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would love to interview you for my Substack on technical high schools! jamesrichardson@substack.com

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author

You're on!

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Also, women often want men to express their desire in a forceful way but are often confused about when they want it. Harper wants Ethan to desire her so much that his desire overwhelms him. But there are so many taboos against men's overwhealming desire. Many men are afraid of expressing it. Women are ashamed of wanting it. Non-consensual porn is watched mostly by women, not men. It is trecherous territory and there are no easy solutions.

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Where's the research for women watching non-consensual porn? Genuinely curious

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Here's some:

"Women are 113% more likely to view "hardcore" porn than men. They're also more likely to search for such terms as "gangbang," "rough sex" and "double penetration." "

https://www.mic.com/articles/122962/pornhub-study-reveals-women-want-hardcore-porn

https://aella.substack.com/p/women-prefer-more-violent-porn-and

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-women-aggression-porn.html

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"Women are 113% more likely to view "hardcore" porn than men."

I don't buy it. Hardcore just means very explicit porn. That's all of the porn on PH. Men aren't searching for softcore porn or just lingerie photos. I'm wondering if women are experiencing men who are having sex with them aggressively and then they search for that afterwards trying to make sense out of it or curious as to what the appeal could be/how to handle it. Most women would just like to have a partner who is at least as good in bed to create an orgasm. Just one. Just one per sexual session.

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Just because you don't buy it doesn't mean it's not true. It's an inconvenient truth. Evolution has no morality, we can fight against it and try to socially engineer society, but we will always be fighting an uphill battle.

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I don't buy the assumption. The assumption is, "women have rape fantasies". We've heard this idea pushed by the Manosphere with no empirical evidence. I'm sure there are some women with such fantasies. There's no way to determine how many. Surveys of porn hub users wouldn't count for obvious reasons.

"Evolution has no morality, we can fight against it and try to socially engineer society, but we will always be fighting an uphill battle."

Don't know what you're referring to here.

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And that gives credence to the PUA theme that women desire aggressive Alpha Men.

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Assortative mating is the norm. PUA's are b.s.ers.

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I’ve noticed, and I could be wrong, that there’s a conflation of male sexuality with problematic and abusive behaviours and that the more female relational approach is the *right* approach. I think it’s better, within the boundaries of respect, politeness and the law, to accept (even celebrate?) both. Then perhaps we can more constructively turn our minds towards everyone getting more of what they want instead of so many people just sitting around watching Netflix.

Does that make sense?

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There's nothing wrong with men and their libido. We don't need to change or be like women. I'm old enough to remember when men or women who exhibited disrespect behavior where just labeled as jerks or rude. There's a social framework that defines what's considered as disrespectful. It didn't mean men should act like women and women like men.

Theres a relatively small number of vocal radical feminist that seem to shape our culture today. Before they became powerful, people would have considered them odd, hateful and miserable people that no one wanted to be around. We can focus on the small number of people who are antisocial or the majority who are decent yet complex people. It's how you choose to perceive life.

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The other day I heard something on the news about the 'male gaze'. Ridiculous. There will always be people who are rude, inappropriate and disrespectful. That's not ok. However, anyone with a brain knows that when you go to the grocery store in yoga pants that leaves nothing to the imagination, men will look.

Imagine if Brad Pit came into a grocery store in a Speedo and tight shirt. Women would be looking intensely. I've been in offices where a very handsome man walks in and the comments made by the ladies would make a sailor blush. :-)

Let's just use the common sense God gave us. We're human and we all have feelings, desires and foibles.

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What would you propose is the respectful, polite, and lawful form of male libido?

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Your 15 year old son is just a victim of his feminized, woke schooling, or else he is just playacting for you--repeating the spurious tropes on toxic masculinity he learned from his female teachers. If I knew your son, I'd ask him man-to-man what he really believes, and think I'd get a different answer.

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So you're saying her son should celebrate his peers who can't manage their own sexuality and only see women as objects?

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The typical healthy 15 year-old boy has a hard time controlling and "MANAGING" his sexuality. That's what it means to be 15 and a boy! The healthy approach would be . . THE 15 YEAR-OLD BOY: "I am super horny. Let me see if I can calm myself down a little and talk to that hot girl and maybe ask her out without appearing like a dork."

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" The healthy approach would be . . Let me see if I can calm myself down a little"

Right. So you seem to be on the same page as her son.

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Oh. And what did your 15 year old son have to say about managing his sexuality?

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Looks like we're behind the curve together https://www.thenewfatherhood.org/p/parenting-in-the-slipstream-of-popular

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Young man who was recently in the dating world here: I suspect that greater (on average) male sexual desire is responsible for a lot of gendered dating norms: men being the “pursuers” and women the objects of pursuit, men initiating most sexual contact, etc. I’m torn between a desire for more egalitarian norms and more acceptance of current norms’ roots in biology. Maybe it’s possible to have a bit of both?

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Read: Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps (1999, with Barbara Pease)[9][10]

After that, read the rest of their books.

They are medical doctors who care about people, not just men. They back up their writing with facts. He trained Putin in body language in 1983. (I don't know if it stuck).

I don't care what men want anymore. They are such a nuisance when they don't take responsibility for their problems. When men realize they are not God and develope into civilians, who respect women's space, women will be happier doing a blow job or hand job or whatever it takes to make men happy (are they ever happy?). Meanwhile, if men have a surplus of hormones, let them spend it on each other. They are useful for making babies, but we already have a surplus. We really only need 5% to 10% men in the populatuon to make babies. The rest can go to war somewhere that's already been wrecked, like in abandoned mines or polluted waters. Let them reap what they have sown. I'm sick and tired of hearing about their stupid penises. Don't t bother me with advice about tv penis programs you think are so informative. I had enough as of half a century ago.

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"Meanwhile, if men have a surplus of hormones, let them spend it on each other. "

In arranged marriage cultures it is not uncommon for young single men to engage in various sex acts with each other until they marry. They don't think of themselves as gay, it's just a solution to their problem. I think this behavior should be encouraged in the west, even though we don't have arranged marriages or sexually repressive societies. Men should seek out their much longed for sexual release from other men. Their libidos are compatible.

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I remember overhearing my mother yelling my brothers to get to the bathroom and take care of themselves and not come out until they could be civil.

Much later in life I did a word clearing on the word 'civil', who h led to 'civil law' and then it's comparison to old Celtic law. A reference librarian pointed out that in old Celtic law, if a man murdered a man from another family, for instance, he had to pay an agreed upon amount, and if he couldn't pay, the responsibility then rested on all his family for seven to nine generations and seven to nine degrees. In civil law a man's responsibility was just his own, not that of his family. So behaving in a civil fashion meant taking all the responsibility for your own actions.

I also found a definition of 'gentkeman' I like: a man who respects a women's space as her own, is trustworthy, courteous, etc

A man lets his mood dictate his actions, a gentleman thinks of the rights and feelings of others rather than his own. Google "gentleman".

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Thanks for this nice example of undiluted misandry, I will add it to my collection. Do you have more pearls of wisdom like this published somewhere? Or could you refer me to pages of your misandrist friends for my further entertainment?

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Your proud and shameless Misandry appalls me.

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I think you might be subscribed to the wrong Substack newsletter.

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You seem nice.

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Usually I am nice. It's just that every once in a while I have a stupid experience with someone I had confidence in, like the taxi driver who threw me to the other side of the back seat by going around a corner too fast. He thought it was funny. I'm 75. It was not funny. He's just an ordinary guy who thinks he knows everything. He hates Jews, Blacks, and he told me he followed me around town one day to see where I was going because when he asked me on the way to town, I wouldn't say. I don't have any reason to hide my agenda from him; I just hadn't made up my plan to do my errands yet, past getting a cup of coffee. So he got suspicious and spied on me. This guy is a grandfather: he should be wiser than to suspect me of doing something wrong. I've been using his taxi service for over a year. If I was a drug or arms dealer, or abused animals or children, he'd have reason to spy on me. I live like a nun is supposed to. Why should he have any reason to doubt me? I've lived here 30 years. I'm sorry to say it, but he is typical. I know there are exceptions: my husband was one. But they are rare.

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He was stalking you. That's illegal. It also indicated he could be planning to commit a crime on you. I hope you contacted police.

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I feel for you. To have this kind of resentment and lack of empathy for half the population (165 mil in the US) must make your life miserable. A male must have really hurt you. I wish you peace and healing.

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Thanks. I might have been over generalizing. I just find it difficult to carry on an interesting conversation with men who have more between their legs than between their ears. I wish all men peace and happiness too, just not at my expense.

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I can understand. Some people are just jerks, men or women. It may help to learn more about men and how our biology effects how we see the world. I read a book called 'The Testosterone files' about a women who transitioned to a man and received testosterone treatments. It gives a fascinating glimpse into both worlds. It really helped me to understand women better. To get a perspective on how women see the world differently. Wish I had read it in my teenage years. I'm in my 60's and am still puzzled at times by womens mysterious behavior. Probably why I love my wife so much. There are evil, misguided people in our society who want to promote hate between women and men. God created us to complement each other and to stand side by side.

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" I read a book called 'The Testosterone files' about a women who transitioned to a man and received testosterone treatments."

Synthetic T at who knows what level of dosing, shot into someone with regular female amounts of natural T will have a different effect than the natural T that is produced in men.

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Yes, it sure helps when a couple is compatible!

Many blessings on your marriage!

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Interesting. You say “for much of human history men have reviled women and treated them with ferocious hatred”. What do you base your information on? How did you measure the hatred? Have you made every man in "much of human history" fill in a questionnaire once per year across his entire his adult life scoring his 'hatred against women' on scale from 'none' to 'ferocious'? And have you also measured hatred of women against men in the same historical period? I will read your analysis with interest.

You are making the same mistake in your thinking as many other feminists. You do not treat men as individuals but as a class, and you project attributes of some individuals who (possibly) existed within the class on the entire class.

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First, I sad "many other feminists" not “other feminists” or “feminists”. The latter two formulations would cover all feminists. I think that I would be able to prove that many feminists make the same mistake as you did, depending on how we would define “many”. But as I do not have so much time to spend in arguments with strangers on the internet and provide them with exhaustive evidence, I will back down and rephrase my statement to “some other feminists”.

As regards your statement, I find it utterly misandrist. You wrote “for much of human history men have reviled women and treated them with ferocious hatred”. That includes every single man who lived through ‘much of human history’ (whatever that is). Being less strict, one could understand as nearly every single man that lived through ‘much of human history’. But you cannot really limit it further. So may be you also would like to rephrase your statement and specify what proportion of men, according to your data, “reviled women and treated them with ferocious hatred”. And whatever metrics you have used to measure the ‘reviling’ and ‘hating’, I invite you to apply also to women through the history of the human kind.

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Gentlemen, I think it's fair and reasonable to say it is necessary to simplify in order to avoid being too technical, and still keep in mind that over simplifying doesnt do justice to the complex ity of the argument. We are searching for a basic understanding of our culture past and present. It might help to remember how changing demographics affect people's attitudes for example. Also science continually gives us new data.

Mentally I say, "Generally speaking, with some exceptions....blah de blah blah bla.". I should vocalize it more often.

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It doesn't matter what they think. Fir them the world revolves around their penis. They are just drones in the bee hive.

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Thank you, Richard--As always, your insights and analysis are so helpful for trying to make sense of our culture. (And your "bait-and-switch" with the technical schools message was very clever and worthwhile!)

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Bravo! Like a breathe of fresh air. These are the facts that used to be considered common sense and embraced not very long ago. Now a small number of radical feminist have imposed their hatred of everything masculine and feminine. Particularly their hatred of men. I truly feel for the young people today. Thank you for your article and the work you do..

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I don't hate men. I just think their one track minds are boring.

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"I don't hate men, I just think they aren't worthy of anything other than a life of toil and suffering."

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One track minds? You do realize very very few of the tools you use to navigate your bitter little life, we’re invented by women?

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Did you mean "were"?

Actually, women have more mental tools than men because generally they develope several more dimensions than killing and sex.

Yes, you could say I'm bitter about men, but I was led to believe, when becoming an adult, that their higher level of tostesterone made them superior humans, and it was such a huge disappointment to find out the hormones have nothing to do with ethics. So I had unrealistic expectations. Now I know better. Try to find the book I've recommended and you'll see what I'm talking about. You can find it second hand in paperback. It was last reprinted in 2017.

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"women have more mental tools than men because generally they develope several more dimensions than killing and sex."

According to this women think far too much about "relationships" and waste a lot of brainpower on them.

https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/men-consume-relationships-women-produce

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Painting with a broad brush, as always, Women just have a different values system because of our hormones. We are built to create and care for our creations. Men are built to dominate and destroy. So when things get out of balance we have too much of one thing or another and we suffer. That's why diplomacy, justice, law and dialogue are important.

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In assorted blogs and substack comments I've encountered "political trolls," but until now I didn't realize "feminist trolling" was a thing.

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I don't think it's "a thing". It's just that as I get older and older the evidence piles up.

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Tom, the link doesn't take me to your piece. If you have the chance, please share.

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